Emirates Photography Club: Supermoon Meetup

ISO100, f11, 1sec; Lightroom: reduced exposure 2 stops, applied graduated filter with
increased exposure to bottom half to bring out beach and water.

Yesterday evening I took the long drive out to the Palm Jumeirah to take part in an event organized by the Emirates Photography Club.  About one hundred shooters showed up to capture the full moon, including a few guys with mammoth lenses.  I was able to borrow an 80-300mm lens from a colleague. While it wasn't of much use shooting the moon, it did help in capturing the Burj Al Arab.  Unfortunately, the spot chosen for this even produced a rather undramatic background.  Still, it was good to meet new enthusiasts and to take the challenge of shooting the moon.

Exercise 42: Rain

It seems rather unfair to have two exercises about rain and none about other types of weather or climatic conditions, especially when living in a place like Dubai.  I considered myself fortunate to run into the first rain exercise at a time of year when Dubai actually sees dark clouds and wet streets, but now it's midsummer and it's nothing but heat and haze likely lasting until about October.

Exercise 41: Juxtaposition

The brief for this exercise is to create a book cover using opposition to suggest conflict.  I really had no idea what to do so started browsing through fiction at Amazon.  I came across an interesting looking book that I haven't read, about a Japanese priest morally compromised by an affair with his mother-in-law. The blurb at Amazon didn't provide enough detail, so I went in search of a fuller summary, which you can read here.

Review: Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 11: The Cabinet of Infinite Curiosities, 1997

Winograd, Woman with Ice Cream Cone, 1968

Clarke's conclusion is really no conclusion at all.

“...the photograph is, in the end, open to endless meanings.”   

If you've been following along it’s really not so surprising.  He finds portraiture ambiguous, the nude contentious, documentary misleading, urban photography unclassifiable.  How could he possibly hope to finish except by asking the reader, perhaps with a wink, isn't photography mysterious, “a cabinet of infinite curiosities”?

Clarke is obviously well-read with an extensive grasp of photographic history.  He relates some interesting ideas and through his examples shows how photographs can be read.  Unfortunately he seems incapable of moderating his communication style in order to convey his ideas simply and clearly.  I can understand what he writes.  That is not my issue.  The problem is is that his writing style seems to push the reader away, rather than invite him in.  The reader is asked to deal with Clarke on his own academic terms.  How much better this book could have been if Clarke had shown some concern for his audience.

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What were you thinking while the monk was on fire?

This month marks the 50th anniversary of a demonstration in Vietnam which resulted in one of the 20th century's most enduring images, a monk seated in meditation in the middle of the street engulfed in flame, a protest again the war raging in that country.  

Time Lightbox has published a short interview with the photographer, Malcom Browne, who in his response to the question of what he was thinking was refreshingly candid and honest.

Review: The Hasselblad Award 1998: William Eggleston

Inspired by In The Real World, I went looking for a book of Eggleston photos and found that all of the UAE’s university and college libraries together carry only one volume, a book published in conjunction with a major photography award presented to Eggleston in 1998.  The book features 61 images, two essays (by Walter Hopps, Curator of the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; and Thomas Weski, Curator of Photography and Media, Sprengel Museum, Hanover), and a transcribed interview (by Ute Eskildsen, Director of the Department of Photography, Museum Folkwang, Essen).  Also included is what appears to be a useful Bibliography of portfolios, monographs, catalogs, articles and essays.

Barrett, Criticizing Photographs, Ch 8: Writing and Talking About Photographs, 3rd ed, 2000

Chinese version of the text

The book ends with a chapter of practical advice for the author’s students, the kind of guidelines you’d read in any introductory academic writing text:  read widely, take extensive notes, consider your audience, use a style guide, find a hook, provide examples to back up your assertions, be succinct.  Included are sample essays from some of Barrett’s previous students, as well as a list of suggestions for conducting a discussion of photographs:

• Describe what you see
• Consider subject matter
• Relate form to subject
• Create group interpretations
• Ask questions of the photograph
• Consider presentational environment
• Consider assumptions
• Be slow to judge
• Be honest

This wasn't the most inspirational text, but it did a good job delivering on its intention to introduce some of the basic concepts and approaches to critiquing photographic images. The writing style is simple yet not condescending and Barrett provides plenty of useful examples.  The books is suitable for a general audience with little background in photography or art criticism and is a good place for a beginner to start.

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Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 10: The Photograph Manipulated, 1997

Alvin Coburn - Ezra Pound vortograph 1917

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Clarke’s review of photographic manipulation is the absence of any discussion of computer technology.  The book was published in 1997, which means Clarke was probably writing as late as 1996, a bit before the boom in digital imaging and the rise of Photoshop and other editing software.  Just as well as we get an overview of what was possible in the days before mass computing, though Clarke confines his discussion to 20th century photography, omitting such 19th century manipulation such as combination prints or differential focus.  

What comes through clearly in this survey is that photo manipulation was a practice of those who had a point to make, of photographers or artists aware of their role as producers of images.  They were ideologically, philosophically, and/or politically motivated.  Not many, it seems, manipulated photos simply because the outcome was aesthetically pleasing.  There were perhaps a few - Rejlander’s combinations prints, Coborn’s vortographs, Man Ray’s Rayograms.  But for the most part those who manipulated did so in order to create images that knowingly mocked photographic and aesthetic convention, perhaps most clearly seen in the philosophy of ostranenie, or making strange.  Among the many schools or trends Clarke surveys are constructivism, surrealism, and satire.  Techniques included unusual perspective, use of mirrors, multiple exposure, collage/montage, and the photogram.  

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Exercise 40: Symbols

This is a conceptual exercise that does not require the production of images.  We are asked to think of one symbol for each of the following concepts, with notes about how they might be used in photographs.  The purpose here, I believe, is to demonstrate how difficult it is to think of original ways of conveying such concepts as images.  Our visual thinking is as uninformed and cliched as our conceptual thinking.

Following are some ideas, along with a few photos scavenged from the web.

GROWTH

Clarke, The Photograph, Chapter 9: The Photograph as Fine Art, 1997

Having just finished Barrett’s chapter on Theory, I found much of this chapter repetitive.  Clarke takes a slightly narrower focus, largely ignoring postmodern ideas and arguments to present an overview of the Photograph as Art. He cites Stieglitz as the father of the movement to elevate the cultural value of the photograph, principally through his journals (291 and Camera Work) and his NYC gallery (located at 291 Fifth Avenue).  Clarke quotes Stieglitz’ description of the events surrounding one his better known images, The Steerage, to elaborate on how the photographer conceived his work.

Stieglitz speaks here as a formalist.  Indeed, the entire scene is described as a composition, “a picture of shapes” which bears no relationship to the scene itself.  The separate elements are reconstituted by the eye in terms of a planar geometry.  There is no interest in the particulars of the scene or the condition of the figures.  Rather, the whole is referred to an implied higher frame of reference which, ultimately, is centered in the photographer/artist;  what Stieglitz refers to as the “feeling” he “had about life.”  (p169)

Barrett, Criticizing Photographs, Ch 7 Theory: Is It Art?: Evaluating Photographs, 3rd ed, 2000

http://jonnicheatwood.com/

This chapter seeks to shine light on the assumptions underlying art criticism. It has to do with ideas about aesthetics, or definitions of art and the process of art. Barrett notes that from the earliest days photographers and critics argued about whether photography was art. Museums largely settled this issue by adding photographs to their collections, but by the 1980’s the question had shifted to whether some types of art - multimedia objects incorporating photographic images - could in fact be considered photography. Whereas much of photographic art theorizing typically took place among photographers, the late 20th century saw a number of outsiders join the discussion, most notably Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Rudolph Arnheim, and EH Gombrich. Among photographers writing on theory, Barrett notes Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and August Sander. The other important voice in aesthetic discussions is that of the museum and gallery curator, who through his decisions about what to buy or display influences the topic or tone of discussion. Barrett notes in particular John Szarkowski, Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art (1962-1991). In his survey of theoretical positions, Barrett reviews the following:

Do newspapers need photographers?

This was the title of a NYTimes blog post in reaction to yesterday's news out of Chicago, quoted below.  Could we ask the same question about writers?  Editors?  It doesn't seem freelancers with iPhones can so easily substitute for years of experience, local connections, extensive training, and commitment to community and professional ethics.

A Chicago journalist believes this may be management strategy to rid the company of the mostly unionized photographers, to be replaced in the not so distant future with cheaper part-timers or freelancers at a later date.

Review: Exposure Master workshop, Keylite Studio, Abu Dhabi, 31 May 2013

This 3-hour program promises to provide a reliable way of calculating proper exposure.  The description as it appears on Keylite's website is appended below.  Including a 15-minute break, the workshop lasted 4 hours and was composed of three parts.  The first was an explanation of how the camera typically processes light by producing an average.  This is not always an accurate representation of the subject as seen by the human eye, particularly in situations with high dynamic range.  The instructor defines optimal (or correct) exposure as the settings which capture and reproduce the maximal amount of data.  (In this regard, full-frame cameras capture more data than those with smaller senors).